There was much hysteria around the relaxing of the UK’s alcohol laws a decade ago that would allow 24-hour drinking but that fear has not become reality with some unusual results from a new report.

Christopher Snowdon the Director of lifestyle economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs, who published the report believes it might have been the smartest thing the UK’s Labour government has ever done.

Across the board, binge-drinking, drink driving accidents and violent crime have actually decreased since the introduction of 24-hour drinking.

“The hysteria about so-called 24-hour drinking ranks as one of the great moral panics of our time, but the evidence is now clear.

“The doom-mongers were wrong. Far from bringing about the catastrophic repercussions that were forecast when it was introduced, the Licensing Act has coincided with a fall in binge-drinking and made little difference to the rate of crime and alcohol-related health problems.

“The biggest consequence of relaxing licensing laws has been that the public are now better able to enjoy a drink at the time and location of their choice.”

Between 2005 and 2015 figures show alcohol consumption dropped 17% per capita, the biggest decline since 1930’s.

The report found that the greater accessibility of alcohol has not coincided with a surge in demand, that is, the more it’s on offer, the less people concentrate their drinking and have freedom to drink when and where they want.

Although not a direct connection, but correlation all the same the report also found in the same time that binge drinking fell for 16-24 year-olds from 29% to 18% and from 25% to 19% among 25 to 44 year-olds.

In turn violent crime actually dropped a staggering 40% since 2004/5 in England and Wales following the relaxed licensing law.

Meanwhile in Australia, New South Wales have introduced their archaic lockout laws that see bottle shops closing at 10pm, refusal of entry to clubs at 1:30am and no service of alcohol past 3am.

Brisbane is trying to follow in those footsteps with eerily harsher laws and even Adelaide looks to ramp up their restrictions to include a 2am lockout.

With longterm research and results from a bigger country with more people and availability of alcohol pointing to a reduction in binge-drinking, drink-driving and violent crimes you really have to wonder what Australia is trying to achieve.

source: Mirror.co.uk